As protests against police brutality continue in Nigeria, a dreaded community of hackers known as Anonymous have shown solidarity for the agitations by hacking into websites of government agencies.
The Hacktivist group that is infamous for hacking websites of repressive governments wants the Federal Government of Nigeria to accede to the demands of the ongoing #ENDSARS protests.
The Heritage Times presents a comprehensive timeline of the group’s Hacktivism in Nigeria. Please remember to check this page for updates on the group’s activities in Nigeria.
Background to Anonymous’ Hacktivism:
The decentralized group of cyber attackers was founded in the early 2000s. One of their earliest known act of solidarity with protesters dates back to 2011 when the group went after government websites in Egypt and Tunisia during the Arab spring.
Since then, the hacking movement has attacked websites of many Federal Agencies around the world including the USA’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Justice, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Pentagon! Websites of international bodies like the United Nations and financial Services like PayPal, Visa and Mastercard have also been victims of the group’s solidarity movement.
A signature characteristics of Anonymous whose members are known as Anons, is their use of the Guy Fawkes mask. Another attribute of the group is their use of text-to-speech or voice changing programmes that let them mask their voice in video messages.
Timeline of Anonymous Hacktivism in Nigeria:
Prior to their launch of attacks on the Websites of Government agencies, the group lent its voice to the #EndSARS protest with a couple of tweets and a video warning the government to accede to the demands of the ongoing #ENDSARS protests.
#SARS special police force unit in Nigeria kills innocents. Today 20 more people lost their lives including anons. #Nigeria gov oppression and killings should stop.
We are #Anonymous.
Expect us. #OpNigeria engaged.#AnonDownhttps://t.co/kAsDJD7cinhttps://t.co/WYqZILD8D8— OPNigeria (@NigeriaOp) October 12, 2020
14th – 15th October 2020:
The group’s first known cyberattack in Nigeria was targeted at the website of the Nigerian Police. According to reports by The Heritage Times dated 15th October 2020, Anon’s compromised the database of Police Force. They obtained documents containing names, addresses, contacts and account details of hundreds of police officers and made them available on the text storage website pastebin.com.
15th – 16th October 2020:
While the website of the Nigerian police was yet to recover from the shock of Anons’ cyberattacks, they compromised the website of Nigeria’s National Industrial Court and also targeted the official website of Edo State Government where they claimed to have obtained a document detailing hundreds of contracts approved by the State Government.
A copy of the document seem by The Heritage Times shows project ID, date of approval, the cost and category of some of the contracts in 2019 and 2020. It also contained names of companies to which some of the contracts were awarded. The hackers also alleged that some contractors were paid for doing nothing.
“You got paid for these contracts but never delivered the job, received billions but spent nothing,” Anonymous said on Twitter.
You told you'd end #SARS
Only changed its name
You can't stop us till all special police force killing innocents is scraped off & gone
We're watching you#Anonymous #endSARS #endSWAThttps://t.co/dpBrQLgIFm https://t.co/TJxIkZ7hUFhttps://t.co/Gt9ObvG52Phttps://t.co/Bw392rX0yA pic.twitter.com/Knl4hA8VzF— OPNigeria (@NigeriaOp) October 16, 2020
Responding, the Edo State Government issued a statement via Crusoe Osagie, Edo State governor’s spokesman who described the documents as fake.
“Our website in Edo State is not for hiding documents, it is for putting documents out there for the public. So you don’t need to hack our website to see things that were put there,” Osagie said.
“If you claim you hack our website to get documents that means whatever they are putting out there is fake because our website is not that one we hide documents in,” he added.
16th to 17th October 2020:
The next victims of Anonymous’ #OpNigeria were the Twitter account of the National Broadcasting Commission NBC as well as the website of the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN. Upon a successful infiltration of the NBC’s Twitter Handle, the group tweeted:
“Good morning, great Nigerians. TGIF and it’s also a good day to #ENDSARS and #EndSWAT
Which government website(s) would you want us to play with? Drop your suggestions under this tweet.
#TwitterDown #NBChacked
We’re taking note of all your suggestions.
What does #Anon have to gain? Nothing!”
They also disclosed that they have attacked the website of the CBN. Checks on the website carried out by The Heritage Times at the time of the announcement showed that the apex bank’s website went offline for an internal server error.
“500 – Internal server error. There is a problem with the resource you are looking for, and it cannot be displayed,” the query read.
#Anonymous #OpNigeria #EndSARS #EndSarsNow
The Nigerian central bank website has been taken #Offline. https://t.co/DASpCE0SaV | TANGO DOWN
Check report: https://t.co/yHqOMIrbUf pic.twitter.com/kwdryiqFTw
— Lorian Synaro (@LorianSynaro) October 16, 2020
Reacting, the apex bank issued a statement denying any form of attack on the site.
“We wish to assure the Nigerian public and indeed all our other stakeholders that the CBN website is adequately protected and that there is no cause for alarm,” the Acting Director of Corporate Communications, Osita Nwanisobi noted via an official statement.
However, Anons made an update to their earlier announcement, noting that “The Nigerian central bank website has now activated the “Under attack mode” to avoid our attacks”
UPDATE: The Nigerian central bank website has now activated the "Under attack mode" to avoid our attacks.
The website is still being attacked and is down. If the site seems online sometimes, its just an offline version of the site offered by Cloudflare. The server is down.
— Lorian Synaro (@LorianSynaro) October 16, 2020
17th-18th October:
Saturday saw an upsurge in Cyberattacks by anon hacktivists as the group claimed to have brought down no fewer than 7 websites that include those of the Lagos State Government, Kaduna State Government, Ministry of Justice, INEC, NNPC, EFCC and NCDC.
Checks carried out by The Heritage Times to ascertain the claims revealed that websites of the Lagos Government, Kaduna Government, EFCC, INEC, and NCDC could not be accessed at the time which anons made the claims.
“Official website of @officialEFCC has been taken down in support of #EndSARSProtest. CHECK HOST: https://check-host.net/check-report/df89d3bk838 TARGET: https://efccnigeria.org/efcc/ You should have expected us!,” they announced.
“NCDC website has been taken #Offline. #TangoDown, Check Host = https://check-host.net/check-report/df8bcefk805 Site: https://ncdc.gov.ng,” they revealed.
“Official website of @inecnigeria has been taken #Offline. CHECK HOST: https://check-host.net/check-report/df8a978k278. #TangoDown! You should have expected us,” they announced.
There is seemingly nothing stopping the group which has vowed to sustain attacks on websites of federal government agencies in solidarity with #EndSARS protesters.
